Reprise Review: Bay's End / Edward Lorn

Reviewed by: BigAl 

Genre: Horror

Approximate word count: 55-60,000 words

Availability
Kindle US: YES UK: YES Nook: NO Smashwords: NO Paper: NO
Click on a YES above to go to appropriate page in Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords store

Author:

“Edward Lorn is an American horror author presently residing somewhere in the southeast United States. He enjoys storytelling, reading, and writing biographies in the third person.” For more, read Lorn’s blog.

Description:

A man haunted by his past, Trey Franklin writes about his horrific twelfth summer, to rid himself of the ghosts that have haunted him since.

Bays End is a Red Adept Select book.

Appraisal:

Monsters are real, ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win. – Stephen King

Unlike the majority of the reading world, I’ve never considered myself a Stephen King fan. Horror, the supernatural, and the other common elements in King’s books are too far from my preferred reading. Yet, over the years, I’ve read several of his books, and liked them every time. I think the quote above, which precedes the start of Bay's End, is a clue to why. Once you strip away the otherworldly aspects of King’s books, you’re left with a story that is all too real – those monsters and ghosts that live inside everyone.

Bay's End is, for lack of a better description, a horror story. I guess. The author calls himself a horror author. Amazon classifies it that way. There are monsters, although they’re the human variety, who make an appearance in the later part of the book. There are metaphorical ghosts that pop in throughout. It is that Stephen King book stripped down to its real elements.

Yet for me Bay's End read more like a coming-of-age story. The protagonist, Trey, is learning about life as an adult, and forced to grow up due to what he experiences. Much of the story deals with friendship, sexual awakening, and figuring out how the world works for someone on the cusp of young adulthood. What keeps this book out of the coming-of-age realm is that Trey’s experiences are so much more horrific than most that he is still coming to terms with them years later. While Bay's End will attract horror fans, its appeal should go well beyond fans of that genre.

FYI:

Adult language and situations.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues.

Rating: ***** Five stars